{"id":6032,"date":"2025-02-11T21:17:51","date_gmt":"2025-02-11T21:17:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/senate-republicans-think-trump-tacitly-approves-of-their-two-bill-budget-plan\/"},"modified":"2025-02-11T21:17:51","modified_gmt":"2025-02-11T21:17:51","slug":"senate-republicans-think-trump-tacitly-approves-of-their-two-bill-budget-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/senate-republicans-think-trump-tacitly-approves-of-their-two-bill-budget-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Republicans think Trump tacitly approves of their two-bill budget plan"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Senate Republicans believe they have President Donald Trump\u2019s blessing as they pursue a two-bill strategy for passing his domestic legislative agenda.<\/p>\n

Trump has repeatedly said that he prefers \u201cone big, beautiful bill,\u201d but Senate Republicans have been privately checking that he is OK with them moving forward with two bills \u2014 one that addresses the border, energy and defense spending quickly, while a second gets into more complicated tax cuts. On Tuesday, OMB Director Russ Vought and Border Czar Tom Homan also said behind closed doors that they need $175 billion in additional border money quickly, further boosting Senate Republicans’ confidence in moving immediately.<\/p>\n

\u201cI talked to President Trump over the weekend. He wants to get results,\u201d Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told reporters after the closed-door lunch.<\/p>\n

The Senate\u2019s plan runs contrary to that of Speaker Mike Johnson, who is still pursuing his one-bill strategy, believing he needs the border, energy and taxes all in one package to pass it through the House GOP\u2019s narrow majority. Johnson told reporters on Tuesday that the Senate\u2019s plan was a \u201cnon-starter\u201d in his chamber.<\/p>\n

Asked if Trump supports Senate Republicans moving forward with a two-bill strategy, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) added: \u201cAbsolutely.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wants results,\u201d Barrasso said of their conversations over the weekend with Trump.<\/p>\n

Homan and Vought, according to GOP senators in the closed-door lunch, didn\u2019t explicitly take a side in Congress\u2019 debate over one bill vs. two. And Homan declined to weigh in on his preference to reporters as he left the lunch. But senators believe the implicit guidance from Vought and Homan is that they want border funding however they can get it, and quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI bet you they talked to [Trump] before they came over,\u201d Graham told reporters. \u201cWhy would they come over and tell us \u2014 begging for money \u2014 if they didn’t want to move?\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump has personally muddied the waters on the reconciliation strategy, consistently saying he prefers one bill but leaving the door open to two bills if that\u2019s the best way to pass it through Congress.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president says he wants one bill. It\u2019s unclear to me from these guys if they want one bill. I think they want funding. I don\u2019t think they really care about the vehicle,\u201d said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), referring to Homan and Vought.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s still unclear if the House can get its budget resolution, which would outline the parameters of one sweeping bill, out of committee on Thursday. Leadership has indicated they\u2019re hoping to get it through the Budget panel this week.<\/p>\n

Graham, Barrasso, Johnson and House GOP Whip Tom Emmer attended the Super Bowl with Trump over the weekend, where they talked about their reconciliation strategy. Graham, recounting their conversations on Tuesday, said that he told Johnson that \u201cnothing would please me more than one big beautiful bill passed by the House\u201d but that border officials are quickly running out of money. Graham also encouraged Johnson to invite Homan and Vought to talk to his conference, arguing the two officials would make their case for moving now on border funding.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf [the House] can\u2019t do it quickly, we need to go to Plan B,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n

Jennifer Scholtes and Lisa Kashinsky contributed reporting.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senate Republicans believe they have President Donald Trump\u2019s blessing as they pursue a two-bill strategy for passing his domestic legislative agenda. Trump has repeatedly said that he prefers \u201cone big, beautiful bill,\u201d but Senate Republicans have been privately checking that he is OK with them moving forward with two bills \u2014 one that addresses the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6032\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}